"The decadence and corruption associated with [Rightel’s] use outweighs its benefits,” decreed Grand Ayatollah Makarem-Shirazi. “It will cause new deviances in our society, which is unfortunately already plagued with deviances.”

Ayatollah Alavi Gorghani said that the video-call service would “jeopardize the public chastity” and “inflicts numerous damages” on Iran’s religion and political system.

Rightel, which sponsored Iran’s recent International Fajr Film Festival,,# allows customers to use both video-call and multi-media messaging functions. The company offers pay-and-go, contact, and data-card packages.

Petitions to ban Rightel have sprung up, and 17 MPs have asked President Ahmadinejad and the Ministry of Intelligence to act.

On Tuesday, Iran State outlet Press TV noticed a story by the Committee to Protect Journalists about a record-setting 232 reporters in prison as of 1 December 2012. Or, rather, they noticed part of it, "Turkey is World’s Worst Jailer of Journalists":

Turkey has been named as the world’s worst jailer of the press by imprisoning at least 49 journalists on terror-related charges, press freedom watchdog says....

The International Press Institute (IPI) and the Turkish Journalists Association (TGC), however, say Turkey has 71 jailed journalists.

So what's missing from the story? Well, if Press TV had made the defiant leap from #1 to #2, it might have noticed something closer to home.

2135 GMT:Yemen Two tribesmen have been killed following intensive Government shelling in Marib province, east of the capital Sanaa. According to Associated Press, citing an anonymous official, the shelling "was aimed at intimidating militants who attacked a crude oil pipeline just half an hour after repairs to it were completed a day earlier".

1950 GMT:Syria. The Local Co-ordination Committees in Syria say 27 people have died in violence today, with nine killed in Aleppo Province, eight in Barzeh outside Damascus, and six in Homs Province.

1800 GMT:Egypt. The head of the military prosecution, Adel El-Morsi, has announced that all women arrested during Friday demonstrations at the Ministry of Defence will be released.

According to lawyers and military statements, at least 14 women amongst the hundreds arrested on Friday were to be detained for 15 days pending investigations. They faced charges including infringing upon state institutions, using violence against members of the armed forces, halting traffic, and congregating and trespassing on a military area.

It was reported earlier today that 179 people seized on Friday were being held on 15-day detention orders. Ahram Online has claimed from a military source, however, that orders have been handed down to 300 people.

2134 GMT: A Warning to Ahmadinejad. Prominent cleric Mehdi Taeb, the brother of an important Revoutionary Guards commander, has put out a wide-ranging statement. He said oil sanctions against "impossible" and declared that the Islamic Constancy Front, vying for influence in the Parliamentary elections, has no relation with the "deviant current". That deviant current "has swallowed Satan", and the "2009 fitna (sedition) was one of their invisible actions".

Most interesting, however, was Taeb's message for the President. He said Ahmadinejad's right-hand man, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, is seeking his downfall, although the Iranian people are too intelligent for this. He continued that "most elites have deserted Ahmadinejad, but most people accept him with Ayatollah Khamenei if not with Rahim-Mashai".

Protesters Detained in MinskKonstantin Kaplin, an unemployed man from the western town of Grodno, says he was convicted this week of applauding in public and fined the equivalent of $200, despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence: He is officially registered as a disabled person and has only one arm.

Mr. Kaplin insists that he was only standing nearby and attempting to photograph demonstrators with his cell phone when plainclothes police grabbed him.

Nima biked to Turkey. He'd been in and out of the Iranian prison system on political charges for the past decade. He was sure he was on the no-fly list and the police were monitoring buses and trains leaving the capital, so he rode his bicycle more than 500 miles from Tehran to Tabriz in eastern Iran. From there, he got on a train to Van on the Turkish side of the border, bribing his way through customs with what money he'd been able to bring with him. From Van he biked almost 900 miles to Ankara to register for refugee status with the United Nations.